English Clubs Get Gold at Bargain Prices From French League

LONDON — France has no competitive league to speak of, given that Paris St.-Germain, stocked with imported stars, already has clinched the domestic title with two months left. Yet players sold on the cheap by French clubs are good enough to be among the most outstanding in England this season.

When votes are cast for the English Premier League player of the year, it could come down to a choice between Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez and West Ham United’s Dimitri Payet.

Both are regularly described as magicians. Both are dribblers from the old school, relatively small and slight figures with the flair to trick opponents, the ability to score and create goals, and the hunger to keep doing it consistently.

There is a third player in English soccer who might eclipse both in the eyes of some managers. His name is N’Golo Kanté. He, too, plays for Leicester, the team that just keeps winning at the top of the league.

Kanté, a midfielder, is different from the other two because his role is the equivalent to being a long-distance runner. He clocks up the miles, game after game. He wins possession like a pickpocket, so quick and so clean that he steals the ball almost before opponents realize they have been robbed.

When you add up the fees it cost to acquire these three game-changers, it amounts to small change. Mahrez cost half a million dollars to get from Le Havre. Kanté’s transfer fee was $9 million from Caen, and Payet was traded by Marseille for $16 million.

It has been more than 20 years since the then-president of the French Football Federation lamented at a UEFA meeting that unless something was done about the English and their television money, they could destroy soccer in his country.

That hasn’t happened. True, from Thierry Henry to Eric Cantona to the best of the French players now, it seems that every English club has at least one prominent Frenchman.

But France replenishes what it loses or sells abroad. One reason is that the French clubs coach technique, rather than robustness, in their academies. Another is that it has a huge pool of players from the immigrant communities within France, along with those youngsters from the country’s overseas departments and territories who end up on the Continent.

Henry’s parents moved to Paris from Guadeloupe and Martinique. Zinedine Zidane is from Marseille of an Algerian family of Kabyle Berbers. Patrick Vieira, Marcel Desailly, Jean Tigana and Claude Makelele all moved from Africa to France at a young age and learned their skills there.

The talents have global roots, and give credit to France for finding and schooling them.

Of the three individuals currently standing out in English clubs, Mahrez is the one who has captured the most headlines. As Leicester has risen, the partnership of Mahrez and Jamie Vardy has blossomed.

Mahrez, a winger, was born in France but represents Algeria, his father’s country, at the international level. He has came out of the French second division to star for Leicester, and he has teamed with Vardy — whose struggles to rise from the depths of English soccer are well documented — to form the most productive striking partnership in the league, bar none.

Payet’s story is just as inspirational. Born on the tropical island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, the nearly 29-year-old is the player — the artist — who makes West Ham tick.

Last Sunday at Old Trafford, he struck a goal against Manchester United that transcended anything and everything United could conjure up. Payet won a free kick from 30 yards out. Everyone knew he would take the shot at the goal from there, and Manchester goalkeeper David De Gea knew exactly what to expect.

De Gea is one of the best keepers in the world. He guessed which way Payet would aim the free kick, but even with his agility and his long arms, the keeper simply could not reach the ball. Such was the power, the precision and the trajectory from Payet as he guided it inside the post.

Last month, West Ham moved to double Payet’s salary because the revolution going on in Chinese soccer had marked him as an exciting target for its money-is-no-object recruitment.

Payet said no to China. He is just getting recognized, still hoping to get a spot on the French team for the Euro 2016 and enjoying his status with the East London team West Ham and its coach, Slaven Bilic.

It is Bilic, a Croatian who played defender for West Ham, who placed Payet at the fulcrum of his team. The coach sees Payet as still a developing talent and would not swap his playmaker for any other player in the league.

What is perhaps surprising is that it took Payet so long to reach his level. There are reasons. He was just 12 when, under a reciprocal arrangement between the island and the French mainland, he was shipped, without his family, to the academy of Le Havre almost 6,000 miles away.

He was homesick, immature and temperamental. By 16, Le Havre rejected him and sent him back to Réunion. Eventually he agreed to try again, though he was reluctant at first. He progressed through Nantes, St.-Étienne, Lille and Marseille to where he is now.

A big talent but a nonconformist, he found consistency under Marcelo Bielsa, an Argentine who happened to coach Marseille for the short time Payet was there. When a second coach, Bilic, raised the bar, Payet leaped right over it. He is still exploring his limits.